After grueling days trying to get apache, php, mysql, and gd working harmoniously (installed via RPMdrake) so that I could install phpwebsite....I am wondering if my approach should be changed to XAMPP.

My knowledge is limited, though we've used Mandrake for years on the following: File Server, mythTV front & backends, database servers, and of course desktops.

Now, I've only compiled a few programs from source...so has anyone had success with XAMPP and phpwebsite?

Well I don't know if this will help you or not, but we have 5 linux servers: One www, one extranet, one intranet, one used for a common MySQL server only, and a test server, all running XAMPP. We did this for a couple of reasosns:
1. Ease of installation,
2. Common installs on all servers, and
3. Stability.

We are running SuSE 9.0 as the operating system, and right after install, XAMPP gets installed. (btw: if anyone needs help installing SuSE 9.x on an old Compaq Prosignia 1600, let me know - it CAN be done, and fairly easily too!)

Even on the one server that we only use for MySQL databases, XAMPP is installed. It gives us what we need, and we can easily install all the libraries we need, and the development team knows where everything is. We can basically copy any change from a configuration file from one server to another with minimal effort. We love XAMPP so much that it is in our base install for any Linux server now.

We are using another open-source package called Logicreate for our content, but we have had great success with it running under XAMPP. Logicreate does not openly support Apache 2.x, but it does work, so I don't see why phpwebsite wouldn't also.

The only drawback that I could see, is where the libraries get installed. If you are using some package that is looking for particular extensions in a directory based on your distribution (webmin took awhile to configure this way), you will need to adjust those to use the libs in XAMPP. Once you get this though, it's easy.

We keep up to date with all the packages, by simply installing the latest upgrade on our test server, testing for a few days, and then rolling it out to the other servers. We don't need to worry about which server has which revision, we let Kai take care of that for us! Security updates, new features or revisions.. all done the same way.

Now if we could just get him to bundle the Logicreate system into XAMPP, we would be all set with our "server in a package!"

Well that's all I have to say about that...

Hope it was helpfull, if not too long.

sablecurls wrote:OS: Mandrake 9.2

After grueling days trying to get apache, php, mysql, and gd working harmoniously (installed via RPMdrake) so that I could install phpwebsite....I am wondering if my approach should be changed to XAMPP.

My knowledge is limited, though we've used Mandrake for years on the following: File Server, mythTV front & backends, database servers, and of course desktops.

Now, I've only compiled a few programs from source...so has anyone had success with XAMPP and phpwebsite?